The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) has denied a British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) report that suggested that prison labor has been producing masks as part of the government’s mask-requisition efforts.
The BBC’s Chinese-language service on Friday published a video report on its Web site showing what it said were inmates in a Taipei prison making fabric face masks.
Taiwan’s single-day output of masks has reached 10 million, of which “a small portion are sewed by prison inmates,” the introduction to the video said.
Inmates in a Taipei prison have been “working overtime” to help increase mask production to meet the nation’s needs in its fight against the COVID-19 outbreak, and the inmates had volunteered for the work, the report said.
The report was removed from the BBC’s Web site late on Saturday after the ministry issued a statement saying that the story was not accurate.
The government requisitions from manufacturers are medical-grade masks, and not the fabric masks mentioned in the report, the ministry said.
The government “did not ask prison inmates to sew face masks,” the ministry said, while urging the media to reach out to the government for verification to avoid inaccuracies.
Meanwhile, the ministry has thanked manufacturing plants, the military, which has provided workers, other government agencies and private entities for their contributions to expanding the nation’s daily mask production capacity from an initial 1.88 million masks to 10 million under the government’s centralized manufacturing and distribution system.
The ultimate daily production capacity target is 13 million masks, the ministry said.
In an effort to meet domestic demand for masks amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the government in January imposed an export ban on disposable masks and began to purchase those produced domestically.
It has built 60 new production lines in less than two months and is working to build 30 more, which are expected to begin full operation by early next month.
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